Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
Read Full debate16:16 - Division on Amendment 1 - Ayes: 77 / Noes: 222 - Amendment 1 disagreed.
17:06 - Division on Amendment 2 - Ayes: 190 / Noes: 238 - Amendment 2 disagreed.
Lord Beecham
There is a lot of competition in that respect. I merely say that on this Bill it is not worth the House taking a position that is a departure from its normal practice. I genuinely fear that the Lord Chancellor will use such a vote to muster support against the much more serious amendments that we have sent back for the Commons to consider. That will not help us in sticking to those amendments, should they come back to us. That is why I will not be in either Lobby this evening if the noble and learned Lord decides to test the opinion of the House.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Faulks) (Con)
My Lords, in speaking against Clause 2 in Committee and in the debate today, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, has maintained that the clause adds nothing useful to Section 1 of the Compensation Act 2006 or to the existing common law and is therefore unnecessary. I take this opportunity to explain why the Government believe that the clause has an important purpose, which merits the support of the House.
The clause stems from our wish to ensure that people can feel confident about participating in activities that benefit others without worrying about what might happen if something goes wrong and they find themselves defending a negligence claim. Clause 2 sets out to provide valuable reassurance that if that happens, the court will take careful and thorough account of the context of the defendant’s actions when reaching a decision on liability. Rather as the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, said when introducing the provisions of the Compensation Act, as I have quoted before:
“They will reassure people who are concerned about being sued that, if they adopt reasonable standards and procedures, they will not be found liable”.—[Official Report, 28/11/05; col. 81.]
So two separate Governments have identified a fear.
It is said that there is no solid evidence and that such evidence as there is is anecdotal. I agree with my noble friend Lord Hodgson: it is rather hard to identify and amass solid evidence about this. However, I am not sure that many people would disagree with the proposition that we have a culture where litigation hovers over many activities like a shadow and can genuinely inhibit the sort of things that most people would consider to be desirable.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
Can the Minister help a non-lawyer? Is it the Government’s policy that they are prepared to use legislation to send signals or make declarations of policy? That seems to me what is at the heart of this matter, not whether the courts have found it important to interpret that law as it stands.
Lord Faulks
I think there is something of both, in the sense that very often in the law of negligence, although the principles are clear, when identifying the answer to a particular factual case—one very much on the margins—a great deal of judicial time is spent identifying what is a duty of care, whether there is a breach of the duty of care and whether there is foreseeability. Extracting the principles from the morass of common-law cases is not easy. This Bill sets out in statutory form principles to which a judge may have regard. That is a legal process. It is also not, I suggest, inappropriate for some form of message—I do not like the word “message” but I think everybody in your Lordships’ House knows what is meant by that—or for some sort of guidance and reassurance to be given to the general population, so that they can act in a way they would like to act without the fear of uncertainty that accompanies litigation.
I was addressing the point made the noble and learned Lord, Lord Walker, about the Law Commission. He is right about the immensely valuable role it plays in making the law and how desirable it often is to have a proper review. He would accept, I am sure, that it is not a prerequisite for the making of law that the Law Commission has examined a particular area. In fact, the Compensation Act 2006 followed an inquiry by the Department for Constitutional Affairs. The committee had produced a report—I was a special adviser so I declare an interest—so it was not via the Law Commission. Valuable though that can be, there is a limit to the amount it can do in a particular timeframe because of the immense calls on its services. While not disagreeing with anything the noble and learned Lord has said, it does not, I suggest, prevent there being a change in the law, notwithstanding the fact that the Law Commission has not considered this matter specifically.
I suggest that this is an important, although not radical, declaration of the existing law. It sends an important note of reassurance. I accept that it may not be the most transformative Bill that has reached this House but that does not mean that it does not serve an important function. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, continued his attack, which I have sustained now for approximately 12 months, on every proposition that the Government have put forward. I normally follow his arguments, which are lucid and clear. On this occasion, I am unable to follow his argument. However, I do not wish to stretch my already stretched synapses even further in an attempt to do so; I will simply accept what he says.
The Archbishop of York
My Lords, I am puzzled. Will the noble Lord tell us whether it is ever worthy to use a statute as a means of giving assurance? I thought that a statute was to state the law, not to assure somebody somewhere. That would be okay. It would be an amazing way of—you know what I mean.
Lord Faulks
I think I know what the most reverend Primate means. With respect, as I said on a previous occasion, describing a statute as sending a message is too simplistic a way of explaining what we do in Parliament. We do not legislate in a vacuum. For example, we identify particular issues, whether they are modern slavery or revenge porn, which became part of an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill. We pass laws which serve the purpose of clarifying the law but they also reflect what people in society think we ought to be doing in Parliament. I rely on what my noble friend Lord Hodgson said about the desire for neighbours to be unshackled. We need more volunteers; we need people to be unshackled. This law may make a modest contribution and I ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Pannick
Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may ask him whether there is any precedent that he can cite for our legislating not to change the law but to provide reassurance.
Lord Faulks
I am not sure that off the top of my head I can think of a particular legislative provision that provides reassurance, but part of the function of much legislation is to provide reassurance and protection to the vulnerable. There is nothing novel about producing a piece of legislation which, in a difficult area, provides some clarity and a modest degree of reassurance in an area of considerable uncertainty.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have supported this amendment. I want to say a word about the contribution of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe. He said that, as the Bill changes the common law, it ought to have been referred in the first instance to the Law Commission. I entirely agree that from time to time it has not been at all easy to discover what the government case has been, but their final position is that it does not change the common law in any way; it merely confirms what was already the common law and what was included as Section 1 of the Compensation Act 2006. I hope that that answers the noble and learned Lord’s difficulty.
So far as the rest is concerned, I shall say nothing more about the arguments put forward by the noble Lord in answer to the debate. They have already been dealt with very fully. However, I want to say a word about the attitude of the Opposition to the amendment. As I understood it until 2.15 pm this afternoon, the Opposition would be supporting the amendment. That was my clear understanding.
Lord Hope of Craighead
My Lords, another feature of this clause occurs to me: how one is supposed to apply it when the issue of contributory negligence comes up. This is one of the problems that the court must have regard to, but we are not told in this very brief provision to what purpose one is examining. I assume that it is whether the individual or body concerned is liable at all, but assuming it is liable, how does one apply it in the context of contributory negligence? I do not believe that that aspect has been thought through at all.
Lord Faulks
My Lords, we have had the pleasure of a short but informative debate this afternoon. The criticism of Clause 2 was that it did not change the law and therefore was not desirable, but the criticism of Clause 3 is that it does change the law—so I will approach the Bill in a rather different way.
The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, would remove Clause 3 from the Bill entirely. I would like to explain to the House why I believe that it is important for the clause to remain part of the Bill. It provides that a court, when considering a claim for negligence or breach of a relevant statutory duty, such as, for example, under the Occupiers’ Liability Act, must have regard to whether the defendant, in carrying out the activity in which the alleged negligence or breach occurred, demonstrated a “generally”—I put that word for the moment in inverted commas—responsible approach towards protecting the safety or other interests of others.
The core aim underlying this clause, and the Bill as a whole, is to provide reassurance to ordinary, hard-working people who have adopted such an approach towards the safety or other interests of others during the course of an activity, that the courts will always take this into account in the event that something goes wrong and they are sued. As well as providing that reassurance, we hope that this will also give them greater confidence in standing up to those who try to bring opportunistic and speculative claims by showing them that the law is on their side.
As I explained at Second Reading and in Committee, we believe that concerns that the clause might in some way undermine the rights of employees and others to bring a negligence claim are unfounded. There is nothing in Clause 3, or in the Bill more generally, which will prevent somebody who has been injured bringing a claim or which will prevent the court finding an employer or any other defendant negligent if the circumstances of the case warrant it.
In addition, the focus of the clause is on whether a generally responsible approach was adopted in the course of the activity—so that we are not looking, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, suggested, at the whole of the behaviour in other circumstances or in relation to some other activity—in which it is alleged that the negligence occurred. It will not therefore enable a body with a slipshod approach to safety to escape liability by pointing to its health and safety record over a longer period of time. If its actions during the course of the activity in question were so risky or careless as to be negligent, it can still be found liable.
The need for this measure is amply illustrated by the evidence that was provided in support of the Bill during its passage through the House of Commons. I have referred to evidence from voluntary organisations that concerns over liability continue to represent a real disincentive, preventing many people getting involved in socially worthwhile activities. Evidence provided by the emergency services also illustrated the propensity of some people involved in accidents to bring opportunistic and, frankly, spurious claims, such as the example we have previously discussed provided by the Cheshire Fire & Rescue Service.
Lord Woolf
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I still, I am afraid, cannot understand whether, where there are two defendants, one who can rely on this Clause 3, and one who cannot rely on it, he is saying there could be a situation where it would be proper for a judge to say that one defendant walks out of court scot-free, even though he caused the accident, and the other is found guilty.
Lord Faulks
The answer is yes. There are lots of different circumstances in which two defendants may find themselves sued. They may be sued on the basis that one is much more likely to be liable than the other. The other defendant may be sued because his insurance arrangements may be considered more satisfactory. There will be circumstances in which one defendant is much more likely to be culpable than the other—in which case very often there will be, pursuant to the 1970 civil liability Act, a division of responsibility between those two defendants. A judge will have to perform that process.
By the same token, a particular defendant in a factual scenario, where an accident is caused, might have, on a particular day, been wholly reckless about the cause of the accident insofar as that particular defendant is concerned. Another defendant might have been predominantly or generally extremely careful for the welfare of that individual. I am not saying that that is necessarily a likely scenario, but it is certainly one within the realms of the many possibilities of claims that the noble and learned Lord and I have been involved in, where a judge has to pick his way through a number of different defendants and try to find a fair answer on the facts. My answer to him is that that particular process, difficult though it is, performed by skilful judges, will not be made significantly more difficult by these provisions.
As I explained earlier, the approach that we have taken does not rewrite the law in detail, but it represents a change to the law in that it does not currently oblige a court to consider whether a person took a generally responsible approach to safety during the activity in question. We wish to ensure that the courts take a slightly broader view of the defendants’ conduct in these circumstances, by looking at whether his approach to safety, taking into account all that he did or did not do, was generally a responsible one. I suggest that that would very much tally with what a number of members of the public might think was fair. If a defendant was really predominantly doing all that he or she could reasonably be expected to do to look after the safety of an individual, why should there not be some reflection of that fact in the determination of liability? Why should it be ignored altogether? The court would be obliged to weigh it in the balance—that is all—when considering the ultimate question of whether the defendant met the required standard of care.
Lord Pannick
Is there some time period over which the court is expected to assess the generally responsible approach of the defendant? How far does this go back? Has the department made any assessment of how much longer court cases are going to take and how much more expensive they will be if the judge has to assess all those matters?
Lord Faulks
With great respect to the noble Lord, considering the activity in question focuses the judge on the activity that is said to have caused the particular injury, or tort, which has eventuated.
Lord Faulks
Perhaps I could finish answering this question before I answer the next one. That would necessitate a judge looking at the activity in question and deciding whether, in relation to the activity in question that is being examined by the court, a generally responsible approach was exhibited by the defendant. What that would not involve would be going through his or her safety record for the previous 10 years, if that is what is being suggested. In fact, as the noble Lord may or may not know from personal injuries claims, very often disclosure of the history of accidents in a factory or documents on previous injuries is done in conventional personal injury claims, as the law is now—there is nothing different about that. So with great respect I do not accept the noble Lord’s suggestion that there would be a lengthening of trial or a greater complication in those terms.
Lord Beecham
The Minister must forgive my impatience again. He has concentrated on personal injury claims, but he would concede that the clause does not restrict itself to such claims. Could he identify some of the other sorts of cases, as his ministerial colleague did in the House of Commons, the non-personal injury cases—contract cases and matters of that kind? Would he say that, if a defendant had demonstrated an approach towards protecting the safety of his staff, that suffices to let him escape from damage to other interests of others? What sort of other interests do the Government intend to be covered by the provisions of the clause?
Lord Faulks
The Bill is described in its preamble as being to make,
“provision as to matters to which a court must have regard in determining a claim in negligence or breach of statutory duty”.
I do not see any reference to breach of contract there. But the noble Lord is right in the sense that Clause 3 refers to,
“a generally responsible approach towards protecting the safety or other interests of others”.
That would open the door to the possibility of other interests being considered. Having regard to the general structure of the Bill, I would not wish to add anything to what was said in the House of Commons. I imagine that it is going to be focused primarily on conventional personal injury cases.
Lord Goldsmith
I am sorry, but I wonder how the noble Lord can make that observation. If a claim comes before the courts, where there is an allegation of breach of statutory duty or negligence, which as he would readily concede could be negligence arising from a contract, how is that clause to be avoided? For example, the accountant says, looking at the wording of Clause 3, “The activity that I carry out is doing people’s tax returns and advising them on that; I have done it for the last 10 years and I am now going to tell the court about my record”. How do the words in the clause prevent that from being done?
Lord Faulks
Let me deal with the hypothetically negligent accountant. As I said in answer to previous questions, the Bill is concerned with the activity in question, so it would be the particular tax return or the particular piece of advice, because that is what the Bill says.
Lord Goldsmith
It would not be this tax return, surely, but the activity of advising on tax returns generally.
Lord Faulks
I respectfully disagree with that interpretation because it is concerned with the activity in question,
“in the course of which the alleged negligence or breach of statutory duty occurred”.
It would not, therefore, deal with the 99 years of accurate tax returns but would focus on the particular tax return that is the subject of the claim in negligence. That is the correct interpretation of the particular clause.
I will answer the question that I hear from a sedentary position: how do we deal with the question of “generally”? My answer to that is that the “generally responsible” approach is directed at the activity in question. It is difficult to see, frankly, that it would have much of an application on the hypothetically negligent accountant—
Lord Faulks
Perhaps I may finish answering this question before I answer the next one. The hypothetically negligent accountant—if he or she has made a negligent error—is going to be liable. This is not going to add anything to that position. It would be no good for them to say, “In the 99 other years in which I did this particular act, I did a good job”, because that just would not bite on this. It does not seem to me that it is very likely that, on the particular hypothesis that the noble and learned Lord put forward, it would have any application.
Lord Hope of Craighead
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I wonder whether the Minister could be more precise. He talked about the activity in question, but surely Clause 3 has to be read in the light of Clause 1. The whole of this brief Bill is introduced by Clause 1, which tells us:
“This Act applies when a court … is determining the steps that the person was required to take to meet a standard of care”.
Surely one needs to be very precise if one is to understand Clause 3; it is talking about the steps that the person was required to take. It may be that the court is saying, “Well, I am not going to find that the defendant was bound to take that step because I am applying Clause 3”. It is either yes or no, I would have thought. Using the phrase, “activity in question” is far too general. If it is to mean anything, it has to be precisely focused on what Clause 1 is talking about, and the rest will then follow—rightly or wrongly.
Lord Faulks
Clause 1, in answer to the noble and learned Lord, is describing the scope of the Act, saying that it applies when a court,
“in considering a claim that a person was negligent or in breach of a statutory duty, is determining the steps that the person was required to take to meet a standard of care”.
It then gives, in the three clauses that we are considering this afternoon, three different factors that should be taken into account—or rather, it says that the court must “have regard” to them. Clause 1 is very much scene setting. However, to turn the argument on its head: if, for example, Clause 3 did not have the expression,
“in carrying out the activity in the course of which the alleged negligence or breach of statutory duty occurred”,
the argument might be stronger, because it could be said that the court must have regard to a generally responsible approach towards protecting the safety of others. Then it could be argued that this is invoking somebody saying “I am normally a conscientious surgeon”, or “I normally look after people in the factory”. However, the very fact that those words are inserted is focusing the court’s attention on the particular activity in question. With respect, therefore, that is my answer to that question.
I submit, of course, that this makes a modest and sensible change, but it is important to bear in mind that the court is only invited to “have regard” to it. If the court thinks that, frankly, notwithstanding a generally or predominantly responsible approach, this particular failure—if such there be—is not acceptable, it will decide on normal principles that there has been a breach.
Lord Beecham
I have another question. The Minister’s colleague, Mr Vara, said:
“Narrowing the clause … would mean that … bodies such as voluntary organisations, religious groups or social clubs which demonstrate a generally responsible approach towards protecting the safety or other interests of their clients or members would not be able to benefit from its provisions. That cannot be right”.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/10/14; col. 693.]
That is the argument that he made in opposing an amendment which had been tabled. That seems to suggest that the Government were contemplating situations in which such organisations would be protected in the course of their general functions in the event of a claim arising—rather than, as the noble Lord implied, only in relation to a particular case in which they failed, as it were, to have sufficient regard to the safety or other interests of a client. Surely the noble Lord is in error in advancing the argument that we are looking only at the particular individual who might be involved in such a claim. That seems to me much too narrow an approach to the terms set out in the Bill.
Lord Faulks
I do not have the full context of what my ministerial colleague said in the House of Commons, but I do not believe that I am in error when I give the reasons for my answers to the various questions that have been posed. As I say, these words are not mere surplusage; they are put in to clarify and limit the extent to which “generally responsible” has an application.
I suggest that this provision is an important but modest reflection of what many people would say was a sensible encouragement of employers to adopt a predominantly or generally responsible attitude to the safety or other interests of others—but which, in appropriate circumstances and subject to the court’s overall discretion, allows these matters to be taken into consideration. That is as far as it goes. It is a modest but, I suggest, sensible addition to the law—and it is an addition to the law, as I think is accepted. Given the clarification I have attempted to give the noble Lord on the limit of the measure’s scope, I invite him to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for returning to Amendment 1A. I thought for a moment that it had been forgotten in the heavy-duty exchange of legal artillery that was flying across the Chamber. I am also grateful for his reassuring remarks about the possibility of something further being introduced along the lines of “predominantly” if the Bill survives the challenge from the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. In those circumstances, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Faulks
Lord Faulks
My Lords, I turn now to Clause 4 and the amendment we have tabled relating to it. We noted the concerns raised in Committee by the noble Lords, Lord Aberdare and Lord Pannick, and my noble friend Lord Attlee that the current definition of “heroism” could be taken to exclude the actions of trained first aid volunteers. That is because the current clause says that a person acts heroically if he intervenes to help somebody in danger without regard to his own safety or other interests. Organisations such as St John Ambulance and the British Red Cross would always train their volunteers to have regard to the potential risks to themselves and others before intervening.
I had a very constructive meeting with representatives from those organisations after Committee to discuss these matters further, which culminated in the amendment that we are bringing forward today. We agreed that the simplest thing to do would be to remove the final 11 words of the clause. This will put beyond doubt that the clause applies to anybody who intervenes in an emergency to help somebody in danger, regardless of whether they acted entirely spontaneously or weighed up the risks before intervening. What is more, St John Ambulance and the British Red Cross, as leading first aid organisations reaching hundreds of thousands of people a year, have said that if the amendment is agreed they will use the opportunity to encourage more people to come forward to act in emergencies. I am very grateful to them for their offer of assistance, which will help to reassure many new first aid volunteers that they can intervene in emergencies secure in the knowledge that the law will be on their side. I beg to move.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick
My Lords, I also have an amendment in this group. It may be convenient if I say what I have to say now. In many ways, Clause 4, which we are now dealing with, is the oddest of these three clauses. As drafted, it was strongly criticised by the Fire Brigades Union, St John Ambulance and the Red Cross, among others. To take the instance of the Fire Brigades Union, the clause goes directly contrary to advice that it has given for many years to people involved in a fire: to get out of the way of the fire as quickly as they can and to stay out. If they intervene to try to rescue somebody, then they are only likely to put in greater danger the firemen, who will have to come to their rescue as well.
This was pointed out as a difficulty—indeed, as a serious objection—in the other place, but no notice was taken of that criticism until at a very late stage in this House, when the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, gave notice of his amendment to leave out the last 11 words of the clause. Leaving out the last 11 words of this clause is undoubtedly a great improvement, but leaving out half a clause to save the rest of a clause is an unusual thing to do. It only demonstrates that the clause, like the rest of the Bill, was never properly thought out in the first place. In Committee I suggested that it looked like a clause drafted on the back of an envelope. I now think that that may be going too far in its favour. It must surely have occurred to someone at some stage that a clause that protects someone who takes no thought for his own safety, but does not protect someone who takes some thought for his own safety—that, as it was put elegantly, as always, by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick,
“protects the instinctive hero but not the thoughtful hero”—[Official Report, 18/11/14; col. 416.]
—is surely inherently ridiculous. Be that as it may, the objection to Clause 4 is essentially the same as that to Clause 2. The substance of Clause 4, as it will stand if the noble Lord’s amendment is accepted, is already covered by Section 1 of the Compensation Act 2006.
It is difficult to imagine a,
“person … acting heroically … to assist an individual in danger”,
who is not by that very act engaged in a “desirable activity” as envisaged by Section 1 of the Compensation Act. If so, this clause adds literally nothing to the existing law. If the noble Lord in his reply can think of a single example where the point I have made is not valid because something would be covered by this clause and not by Section 1 of the Compensation Act, I hope he will tell us. In the mean time, I submit that it adds nothing and should be rejected on that ground. In due course I will move my amendment too.
Lord Faulks
My Lords, for the most part the Government’s amendment has been supported. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, says that the fact that we had to remove nearly half the clause, because half of it was not worth while, indicates that the clause really was not worth while. That may not do entire justice to his argument, but we say that we responded to the burden of the argument. We listened to the debate and we consulted St John Ambulance. We certainly do not want to do anything that does not realise the main objective of the Bill, which is to encourage people to volunteer, to assist and to provide, if necessary, emergency assistance.
The Government will no doubt take very much to heart the criticism of the use of language made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Walker. I explicitly do not promise to make any changes before Third Reading but I undertake to revisit the issue in case any further clarity can be attained by the use of “person” or “individual”.
However, I would say to anyone who is not a lawyer that Clause 4 is pretty clear. It states:
“The court must have regard to whether the alleged negligence or breach of statutory duty occurred when the person was acting heroically by intervening in an emergency to assist an individual in danger”.
I am really not sure that that is a terribly difficult concept to understand. I think that men and women would understand what was meant to be conveyed by that, and it is perfectly reasonable to ask the court to pay regard to it. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, may well be right that judges would take that into account. Certainly most judges would.
However, the outcome of any negligence case, as those of us who have laboured in that particular vineyard will tell the House, is never clear, particularly when there is a very badly injured claimant. Judges sometimes do not sufficiently bear these matters in mind. The court must now “have regard”—that is all we ask—to whether there is heroism as described. We do not believe that heroism needs further definition or examples. We think that judges should be able to recognise it when they see it.
I submit that, while taking on board the criticism of some aspects of the drafting, this very much maligned Bill and this clause serve a sensible, common-sense purpose, and I ask the noble and learned Lord not to press his amendment.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick
Before the noble Lord sits down, I wonder whether he would just deal with the principal point made both by myself and by the noble Lord. In what respect does this clause add anything to Clause 2, as it will now stand part of the Bill, or to Section 1 of the Compensation Act 2006? Will he please give us one single example?
Lord Faulks
I will give the same answer that I gave in relation to the distinction between the Compensation Act and this Bill, which is that the Bill says that the court “must have regard”. That is a distinction. I said in Committee that there may well be an overlap between Clauses 2 and 4. I do not say that they are wholly distinct; they convey an accumulation of concepts which are readily understood, and a judge may find it possible to bear in mind both Clause 2 and Clause 4. That fact does not mean that Clause 4 cannot, in appropriate circumstances, serve a useful purpose.
Baroness Warnock (CB)
Before the noble Lord sits down, will he answer the question raised by my noble and learned friend regarding what exactly the word “heroic” adds to Clause 4? Could it not be left out? Intervening for the sake of saving somebody is surely enough. Is there any reason for having “heroism” or “heroically” either in the Title of the Bill or in Clause 4?
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood
Before the Minister answers that, the words that are completely surplus here are “acting heroically by”. Why can it not read, “was intervening in an emergency”? Can the Minister whet our appetite as to whether there is any scenario when you can intervene in an emergency and so on, within the meaning of this clause, without acting heroically? If not, for heaven’s sake get rid of it.
Lord Faulks
The answer is that the word is used in the clause to describe a particular circumstance which I think would convey to most people exactly what is intended by that clause. Yes, there may be some circumstances in which it is surplusage, and others when it is useful to describe what is said. I am afraid that the criticisms have now been made, and I have given answers to the questions. It is a matter for the House to decide whether they are satisfactory.